Creating Government 2.0 and Social Media

I do not consider Facebook an ideal engagement platform for official social media outreach, however, it has too many members to ignore. Within the guidelines of your organization, here are some of my thoughts about how to use it to full effect:

Leverage person profiles to spread important outreach messages;

Use inexpensive targeted ads for key marketing messages, such as recreation opportunities. For cost-effective campaigns, buy ads by click and include short, actionable messages that do not require readers to click through to appreciate;

On any official page or profile, include and enforce a clear commenting policy. DO accept comments. Remember that once you create an official public forum, you may be legally required to maintain it or an equivalent outlet on an open-ended basis;

Use applications to automatically send other content to your Facebook page or profile: Sent tweets and status updates to a profile or a page using the Twitter app or a service like Amplify, send any RSS feed to your profile or page using Twitterfeed or a similar service, and update your page with photos or short blog entries automatically using services such as Flickr, Tumblr or Posterous.

And, here are a couple of blog posts I’ve written that address Facebook in a more poetic sense:

The more I talk and think through governance and social media, the less enamoured I am with Facebook. Sure, it sounds really, really good at first, all 400 million members. And it looks easy. But if done poorly, an official presence on Facebook is worse than no presence at all.

You could have a consultant set up the best page in the world, bells, whistles and even original apps. It will look good for a few days. But it won’t stay that way.

Because social media is alive.

Tell me, what have you seen happen to these pages if not tended?

In the best case, they meander off into a sort of eternal half-life, like any dead page on the Web. But in the worst, they become a platform for dissent, a place for mobs to pummel an effigy. And, in the middle ground, the supporters are there, but they’re ignored amidst a bunch of unanswered invites to join a mob or to plant a fake plant to end global warming.

So before you Facebook, think about it, make sure you’re up for the investment.

“Facebook is just an aggregator. Get your page set up “correctly” so that it’s slurping all your other “live” feeds. This is my strategy as a person and my recommended strategy for biz/gov/etc. I don’t have to tend to my personal Facebook page because I put time into flickr, brightkite, twitter, etc.

“If a gov is using Flickr, YouTube, blogging, etc. then their Facebook page *will* be alive, relevant, and up to date.

There has been an unquestionable explosion of government social media use in the last year. Recently, GovTwit, the Twitter directory of government agencies and officials, reported 44.9 million followers for the 3,000 IDs it tracks, after starting in 2009 with just a handful of accounts. Still, towns, agencies and leaders not using social media still far outnumber the early adopters.

And much of the hand-wringing over official social media use is about the public – what if they say something we don’t like! Many of the agencies using shiny tools like Facebook and or Twitter don’t even allow comments on their Web sites, even sites they call “blogs.”

Fear and failure to engage are simple reinforcing citizen concerns that government doesn’t listen and doesn’t care.

According to an April Pew study on trust in government, “By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days.”

I, and, I hope, thousands of other Government 2.0 advocates, have not spent the last two years building a movement to have it end up as “The System 2.0.”

Some may argue that government needs to be on social media channels because of the large audiences. However, I cannot state more emphatically – if you’re considering a social media channel, but don’t want to provide citizen (customer) service and two-way engagement on that platform, you shouldn’t bother.

Using new media channels for one-way broadcasts and propaganda will only further alienate the people we serve. There are plenty of agencies using social media to engage and build trust. Join them, or don’t bother.

my website, opensoruceg.com, is to advocate for iVote/Open Vote, an ap alongside leader decisions, but it really needs a slashdot for politics online somewhere, reddit or cbc ideas built into a website political system (and anything less than transparent open source code is a scam imo)

I play on a team called Open Source Government to push for such goals in our real world (that online one, lol)

One day 360 million will vote alongside our leader, whether they want us to or not.

The informed will brief and explain to the masses, new polls and voting questions asked, best questions and user asked stuff upvoted for proper debate, discussion, and official voting.

If voting is so important why aren’t we doing it Daily? They got Facebook, Hotmail, WordPress but our govt is too stupid to pull together a political voting website /w user interaction???

..stupid like a Fox! ;)

broken by design systems, corrupt, greedy, filthy politicians.

Something this garbage man can’t stand for. I’ve seen less garbage in the back of my truck!

…but like Napster I don’t ask the official system to regulate itself, the police to police themselves, I call upon the Napster types to build systems the system itself might not want.

well when 70% find fair use, not for profit, copywrong downloads acceptable in Canada yet the system won’t reflect the wishes of it’s people, those same people must all downvote RIAATarded laws together and go kick some ass in daily polling.

I’m not anti corporate, they just gotta know their role is all.

1. President/Prime Minister
2. Senate/House of Commons
3. Corporate/Industry Experts/Employees
4. Citizens, 360,000,000+ in USA/Canada alone!
5. Anon votes, some kind of IP double voting block but include anons for replies and comments the top 4 can’t do…lol ;)
6. Donation/Money Fed
I’d dive up the voting like this, can “earn” yer way from 4 to 3 by working in a telco company as a line guy or by having more say in a garbage industry if yer a fellow garbage man.

So we’d still get our official stable positions, we’d even get the lobbyists in at spot #3, above people (b/c if they are throwing money at it, it’s GOTTA be important! LOL)

I was even thinking of a #6 i edited in. I saw America’s got talent where you could vote in the winner, max 10 votes and each is a bucks or two on yer cell phone. Amazing system, funny it’s kicking ass on such trivial bs.

I’d adopt such a pay donation system to “get things done” and even have it written into tax code for breaks b/c of contributing properly.

List any cause and allow people to donate credits from their bank/phone bill on text charges contributing….

These are my dreams for a future were all a part of. I want to compare citizen votes on daily events vs politician official ones.

I could care less how those politicians are voting, I care for the swarm of people we have. Me, You, Us……

I’d even think a person should be able to vote as a leader and a private citizen also. Diff voting areas of course.